[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 103 (Thursday, July 22, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S8650]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SENATOR BOB DOLE AND THE WORLD WAR II MEMORIAL
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, on Memorial Day, my wife Marcelle and I
were honored to attend the dedication of the gleaming new World War II
Memorial. This memorial is not only a testament to the sacrifice of the
16 million courageous men and women who served in that grand struggle,
but, in some ways, it speaks to the tireless energy of our friend and
former Senate majority leader, Bob Dole.
Senator Dole received a Purple Heart in Italy, yet never let the
lingering effects of his very serious wounds stand in the way of his
overall effectiveness and ability to lead the Senate. After he left
office, he turned his special brand of energy and intelligence towards
ensuring the completion of the new memorial. He helped raise awareness
of the project across the country and was critical to helping gain
congressional approval of the measure.
During the dedication, Senator Dole gave a moving tribute to his
comrades-in-arms. These remarks helped give further context and meaning
to the pillars, plaques, and fountains that make up this grand
memorial.
I will ask to have these remarks included in the Record, and I
implore all of my colleagues to take a few minutes to read this speech.
Today is a particularly fitting day to read Senator Dole's remarks,
as today is his birthday. I want to wish my friend a very happy
birthday.
I ask unanimous consent the speech be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Remarks of Senator Bob Dole--National WWII Memorial Dedication, May 29,
2004
In the first week of January 1945, a hungry and lonesome
second lieutenant from small town Kansas dispatched a message
to his folks back home: ``You can send me something to eat
whenever you are ready,'' he wrote. ``Send candy, gum,
cookies, cheese, grape jelly, popcorn, nuts, peanut clusters,
Vicks Vapo Rub, wool socks, wool scarf, fudge, cookies, ice
cream, liver and onions, fried chicken, banana cake, milk,
fruit cocktail, Swiss steaks, crackers, more candy,
Lifesavers, peanuts, the piano, the radio, the living room
suite, the record player and Frank Sinatra. I guess you might
as well send the whole house if you can get it into a five-
pound box. P.S., keep your fingers crossed.''
In authoring that only slightly exaggerated wish list I
merely echoed the longings of 16 million Americans whose
greatest wish was for an end to the fighting. Sixty years on
our ranks have dwindled for the thousands assembled here on
the Mall and the millions more watching all across America in
living rooms and hospitals and wherever it may be--our men
and women overseas and our friends in Great Britain and our
allies all around the world. Our final reunion cannot long be
delayed.
Yet if we gather in the twilight it is brightened by the
knowledge that we have kept faith with our comrades.
Sustained by over 600,000 individual contributions, we have
raised this memorial to commemorate the service and sacrifice
of an entire generation. What we dedicate today is not a
memorial to war, rather it's a tribute to the physical and
moral courage that makes heroes out of farm and city boys and
that inspires Americans in every generation to lay down their
lives for people they will never meet, for ideals that make
life itself worth living.
This is also a memorial to the American people who in the
crucible of war forged a unity that became our ultimate
weapon. Just as we pulled together in the course of a common
threat 60 years ago, so today's Americans united to build
this memorial. Small children held their grandfather's hand
while dropping pennies in a collection box. Entire families
contributed in memory of loved ones who could win every
battle except the battle against time. I think of my brother,
Kenny, and my brothers-in-law Larry Nelson and Allen Steel,
just three among the millions of ghosts in navy blue and
olive drab we honor with this memorial.
Of course, not every warrior wore a uniform. As it happens,
today is the 101st birthday of Bob Hope, the GI's favorite
entertainer who did more to boost our morale than anyone next
to Betty Grable. And I can already hear Bob . . . ``but I was
next to Betty Grable.'' And it's hard to believe, but today
is also the 87th birthday of John F. Kennedy, a hero of the
south Pacific, who, a generation after the surrender
documents were signed aboard the USS Missouri, spoke of a new
generation of Americans tempered by war that was nevertheless
willing ``to pay any price, bear any burden, meet any
hardship, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and
success of liberty.'' And we shall always honor the memory
of our great leader and our American hero, General
Eisenhower, who led us to victory all across the world.
As we meet here today, young Americans are risking their
lives in liberty's defense. They are the latest link in a
chain of sacrifice older than America itself. After all, if
we met the test of our times, it was because we drew
inspiration from those who had gone before, including the
giants of history who are enshrined on this Mall, from
Washington, who fathered America with his sword and ennobled
it with his character . . . from Jefferson, whose pen gave
eloquent voice to our noblest aspirations . . . from Lincoln,
who preserved the Union and struck the chains from our
countrymen . . . and from Franklin Roosevelt, who presided
over a global coalition to rescue humanity from those who had
put the soul itself in bondage. Each of these presidents was
a soldier of freedom. And in the defining event of the 20th
century, their cause became our cause. On distant fields and
fathomless oceans, the skies over half the planet and in
10,000 communities on the home front, we did far more than
avenge Pearl Harbor. The citizen soldiers who answered
liberty's call fought not for territory, but for justice, not
for plunder, but to liberate enslaved peoples around the
world.
In contending for democracy abroad, we learned painful
lessons about our own democracy. For us, the Second World War
was in effect a second American revolution. The war invited
women into the workforce. It exposed the injustice on African
Americans, Hispanics and Japanese Americans and others who
demonstrated yet again that war is an equal opportunity
employer. What we learned in foreign fields of battle we
applied in post-war America. As a result, our democracy,
though imperfect, is more nearly perfect than in the days of
Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. That's what
makes America forever a work in progress--a land that has
never become, but is always in the act of becoming. And
that's why the armies of democracy have earned a permanent
place on this sacred ground.
It is only fitting when this memorial was opened to the
public about a month ago the very first visitors were school
children. For them, our war is ancient history and those who
fought it are slightly ancient themselves. Yet, in the end,
they are the ones for whom we built this shrine and to whom
we now hand the baton in the unending relay of human
possibility.
Certainly the heroes represented by the 4,000 gold stars on
the freedom wall need no monument to commemorate their
sacrifice. They are known to God and to their fellow
soldiers, who will mourn their passing until the day of our
own. In their names, we dedicate this place of meditation,
and it is in their memory that I ask you to stand, if
possible, and join me in a moment of silent tribute to remind
us all that at sometime in our life, we have or may be called
upon to make a sacrifice for our country to preserve liberty
and freedom . . .
. . . God bless America.
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